


wherever you're going, i'm not far behind

by shirawords



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Casual Sex, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Run-On Sentences, Somewhat explicit sexual content, grammar? I hardly know her, gratuitous use of commas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 05:25:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15381630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shirawords/pseuds/shirawords
Summary: The first time it happens, they’re both a little drunk. By the sixth time, she’s scared enough that if they keep ignoring it, it’ll stop all on its own, so she says something.Or, Bellamy and Clarke are both single, and fucking, and it's going to be fine.





	wherever you're going, i'm not far behind

The first time it happens, they’re both a little drunk.

Not too drunk, of course, Bellamy is very insistent about consent, but just past tipsy, enough that neither of them stop and think better of it. They pass out in a tangle of discarded clothing and limbs, and when Clarke wakes up, she’s comfortable in a way she hasn’t been for months, cocooned in blankets and warmth, until she opens her eyes.

The ceiling above her is the disgusting pale green of Bellamy’s wallpaper that he won’t get redone no matter how many of his friends complain about it. It’s expensive, he says, and none of them have to live there, so they can either shut up or stop invading his apartment just because it’s closest to the liquor store. Clarke glares up at the color, head a bit stuffy and mouth cotton ball-dry, as the memories of the night before come sneaking back in like guilty thieves. Her boobs are sore, and she has visions of him sucking marks into them, mouthing his way down her body to give her the best head she’s ever gotten, then mouthing his way back up to kiss her deep while he filled her up, long and thick and perfect inside of her, making her scream, almost, with the feeling, pounding into her until she came again before groaning into his climax, and God she has to stop thinking about the way her best friend looks when he comes right away. 

Bellamy is in the kitchen making eggs when Clarke finally comes out of his bedroom. None of his housemates are in the common space, and Clarke breathes a sigh of relief and crosses two of her last-night-recovery plans off of her list. She’s going to tell her housemates that she crashed at Bellamy’s because she was too drunk to drive, which happens a couple of times a month. She usually sleeps on his pull-out couch, though, and if Murphy had been around to see her walk of shame, there would have been no keeping it from Emori, or Harper, or Octavia, who likes to gossip and who would have told the entire group.

Clarke pulls a chair out from the kitchen table, wincing as it squeaks against her hangover headache, and sits. Bellamy grunts noncommittally, he’s never been a morning person.

“So…,” Clarke says, because someone has to say something. They can’t ignore this, no matter how much she’d like to.

“So,” Bellamy says back, still facing the stove. Clarke is grateful, she doesn’t think she could have this conversation while looking him in the eye.

“We fucked,” she says bluntly.

“We did,” he responds. 

“And?” she asks, with no idea how he’ll reply.

“And what?” is what he comes up with after a minute of poking at the eggs. “We’re both adults, it was consensual, we had fun. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

Clarke sighs with what must be relief. “Cool.”

“Cool.” Bellamy turns off the stove and scrapes the eggs out of the pan onto two plates. He carries them over to the table, and Clarke gets her first look at him. In his sleep shirt and sweats, she can make out the lines of his muscles, and the neckline of his shirt does nothing to disguise the hickey she must have left last night.

“I didn’t put mushrooms in yours, so don’t even think about stealing from my plate,” says Bellamy, making brief eye contact.

“I never steal, I just redistribute so everyone has an equal share,” Clarke snipes back, glad they’re falling back into their normal banter. This is how they always are. Nothing’s changed. She’s relieved. 

—

The second time it happens, his hands are getting more and more adventurous while she’s lying with her feet in his lap at Jasper and Maya’s little condo during game night, sliding further and further up her legs, and she can’t stop looking at him, even though he’s playing it cool and studying the chessboard of his weekly grudge match with Miller. Harper drove, so Clarke makes some dumb excuse about leaving her jacket at his place and the drive back takes far too long but also no time at all. They stand, looking at each other awkwardly, and suddenly they’re together, chests pressed close and hands exploring and she gets to remember what he looks like, in detail, when she unzips his pants and pulls them down as she slides to her knees in front of him, and God, the look on his face when she takes him in her mouth is too much, but the look when he makes her come the first time, and the second, and the third, is somehow even more.

The third time it happens, they’re standing a little too close together, chests heaving as another one of their arguments turns heated, and she can’t quite remember how it starts but suddenly they’re kissing, and one thing leads to another, and he’s got her pressed against the wall with two fingers inside her and another in her mouth and he’s murmuring in her ear and she never knew she liked dirty talk this much and they’re naked on his bed and God she needs this like she’s never needed anything before.

The fourth and fifth times it happens, she doesn’t pay attention to what starts it because she can’t stop it, and by the sixth time, she’s scared enough that if they keep ignoring it, it’ll stop all on its own, so she says something. 

“We keep doing this,” she tells him afterwards, lying just too close to be friendly and staring up at his horrible green ceiling. He grunts out some kind of affirmative.

“No, I mean we could keep doing this,” she says, and she can feel him start even though they’re not quite touching.

“What?” He sounds less surprised than he does suspicious. 

“Obviously, we have—chemistry.” She’s still looking at the ceiling. “Neither of us is seeing anyone, and the sex is good, and it hasn’t screwed up the group dynamic or anything when we’re all hanging out, so…we could keep doing this.”

Bellamy is silent for just long enough that she starts to get nervous. Then he snorts out a laugh. “The sex is more than just good, Princess.”

She swats his arm, relieved. “Don’t let it go to your head, your ego is already too big for both of us.”

He props himself up on an arm and looks at her, wiggling his eyebrows. She groans. 

“You set yourself up for that one,” he smirks, and she has to agree.

—

By the time Monty’s birthday rolls around, they have a good thing going. About once a week, after some group hangout or other, Clarke will make eye contact with Bellamy and tell her housemates that she’ll get a ride home with him. Usually they’ve all been drinking, so no one thinks twice when she shows up the next morning instead of later that night. No one’s bothered, no one knows, and while Clarke has run into Murphy in the kitchen on a few occasions, he doesn’t seem to think anything is up. Clarke finds she’s adjusted to their new dynamic with ease. She’s always known Bellamy is attractive, with his annoyingly perfect abs and his thick, soft hair and his freckles, and now she gets to take advantage of having a really hot best friend. It’s just fun, and their easy bickering transfers surprisingly well to the bedroom. It’s great.

The first cracks start to show at Monty’s birthday party. They’re all out at The Ark, Monty’s favorite bar by the docks, and Clarke’s gone to sit at the bar while everyone else does their own things. Octavia’s dragged Lincoln to the dance floor, and Bellamy’s providing vague supervision for Murphy and Emori’s darts game, which is a good idea, because who knows with those two and sharp objects. Monty and Jasper are playing pool, and Miller and Harper are leaning against the table, heckling. Clarke flags down the bartender, who is , of course, Bellamy’s ex Gina, and orders some wine. Gina’s cool, she always gives them free shots, which has merited her a nickname in the group chat.

Clarke is nursing her second glass of wine—she’s driving tonight—when a guy with cute floppy hair sits down at the stool next to her. He’s a respectful distance away, and the stool on his other side is occupied, so Clarke’s still relaxed. Besides, Gina has her back. The guy looks at his phone, purses his lips, and puts it away.

“Can I ask what you’re drinking?” he says to her. “I don’t want to bug you or anything, but I’m driving and I don’t want anything hard.”

Clarke debates for a moment, then turns to face him. “I’m driving too,” she says, and talks him through the finer points of The Ark’s wine list. He’s cute and charming, making self-depricating jokes and teasing her, never pushing too far. She gets his name, Finn, and his number, as he tells her horror stories about his job as the ombudsman at Mount Weather University, his alma mater. By the time Harper comes to get her, Clarke is definitely flirting, laughing over his tales of college student antics and brushing her hand against his as she reaches for her wine. It’s been a while since she had anyone, and the possibility of possibility swells up in her chest, bright and hopeful. 

—

Bellamy brings it up the next time they have sex. Clarke is halfway on top of him on his couch, his skin glowing in the afternoon sun—they always seem to hook up at his apartment—when he pushes her shoulder gently. 

“Wait, what about that guy you met at the bar?” 

“What guy?” Clarke responds, even though she knows exactly what he’s talking about.

“The one from Monty’s birthday, you were flirting,” he responds.

“Oh, Finn. What about him?” She’s trying to avoid this, and she doesn’t know why.

“I was just wondering—“ he starts, and runs a hand through his hair. “Neither of us were seeing anyone when we started this.”

“And neither of us are seeing anyone now,” she responds.

“Are you sure? You seem to be texting him an awful lot,” he says accusingly, and her hackles go up.

“I text who I text, Bellamy, and if I say I’m not seeing anyone, then I’m not. We’re friends, it’s nothing, our agreement is fine.”

He looks at her hard, and she can’t read his expression. “Whatever you say, Princess,” he sighs, and pulls her all the way on top of him. She gets caught up in him, in his kiss and in the way his hands slide across her body, smooth with just a little bite, and forgets all about it until she’s home again that evening. 

—

Finn asks her to get drinks at The Ark again two days later. She bites her lip on a smile when she reads the text, a clear step forward from the flirty back-and-forth they’ve had, complaining about their jobs and joking around. He’s been sending her pictures of weird student graffiti he finds on campus, and she poked fun at his superior attitude, given that he’s only a few years older than the students. They make plans for the following Tuesday, since Clarke’s shift at the clinic starts in the afternoon the next day, and she tells Harper and Octavia over dinner, possibility bubbling up in her stomach again. 

When Clarke gets home on Tuesday, she jumps into the shower and changes into her go-to date outfit, a knee-length sundress that shows off her boobs without making too much of a statement. When she leaves her room to grab a bite to eat, Bellamy is lounging on the sofa. He turns to look, mouth open to say something, and clenches it shut when he sees her. Bellamy knows her date outfit. He’s her best friend, he poked fun at her before her first date with Lexa, before that ended in disaster, and psyched her up for her first date with Niylah, for all that fizzled out after three dinners and some nice sex. 

“Going somewhere, Princess?” he says, dry, and she must be imagining that they way his mouth shapes the nickname sounds more like it did back before they were close and he still used it to rile her.

Clarke isn’t sure what to say. Obviously, she’s going somewhere, and he knows it. “We’re getting drinks at The Ark” is what she settles on.

“You and that pretty boy, what’s-his-name?” His tone is tone is less dry now, more heated.

“His name is Finn. Do you have a problem with that?” She can’t help but respond to the anger she reads in his tone. They’ve never been great with de-escalation, they always wind each other up. It works in the bedroom, she reflects, but sometimes she wishes she knew how to back down from him. She doesn’t want to deal with this right now. For all that she loves arguing with him, this feels uncomfortable.

“No problem. I just thought we were on the same page, you know, about how neither of us was seeing anyone,” he shoots back, and yeah, he’s angry.

“We were! We are! This is new, ok? I don’t even know if it’s anything, I haven’t even been on the date yet!” She really doesn’t want to deal with this.

“I thought it was nothing.” God, she hates it when he throws her own words back at her. “There goes our little ‘agreement,’ as you put it.”

“Things change, okay Bellamy? And you don’t control my sex life,” she bites out.

The heat goes out of his eyes. “Of course I don’t,” he says, sounding tired. “I just thought you would have told me.”

“Again, you don’t control my sex life! It’s none of your business!” She doesn’t know why she’s so angry about this, about him. Whatever it is, she can’t stop. 

Bellamy is quiet, and again, she can’t read his expression. “I didn’t mean—” he cuts himself off. “We’re friends, Clarke. I just though you would tell me, I guess, if there was something new in your life.” 

Clarke stops, her mouth open. She doesn’t know how to respond to that. Before she can say something, Octavia comes breezing out of the bathroom and towards the door. 

“C’mon, Bell, I’m hungry!” she calls back at him. Of course, Clarke thinks, it’s sibling dinner night, it’s Tuesday. Bellamy pulls himself up off the couch and follows his sister out of the apartment, closing the door gently. She’d rather he slammed it, and she doesn’t know why.

—

The date goes well, well enough that they make plans to see each other that weekend. Finn kisses her when he walks her to her car, and she smiles all the way home. 

—

Because Octavia can’t keep her mouth shut, everyone knows that Clarke has a boyfriend within two days. It goes over without too much hassle, nothing near the level of heckling that Monty and Miller got when they admitted they were going out. Clarke fields a few excited questions and rolls her eyes at the innuendos, but nothing much changes. Finn isn’t part of the group, so no one expects to meet him yet.

Everyone, especially Octavia and Jasper, heckle her when she cancels on Saturday drinks to hang with Finn, especially because her date is technically in the afternoon; they’re going to go see a movie and get takeout to Finn’s place, and Clarke is optimistic that she won’t be home until Sunday morning. Octavia latches on to Clarke’s vague mention that she won’t be home Saturday like a dog with a bone, and soon enough even Miller is poking fun at her, in a loving way. 

The only one absent from the group chat roast is Bellamy, which doesn’t strike Clarke as strange at first. He’s an old man at heart and never checks his phone, but as she’s opening her newest notification, Clarke sees his name under the list of chat members who’ve read the conversation. Usually, Bellamy is the first to rib Clarke, to the extent that a good quarter of the group chat is the two of them bickering about something, but apparently not this time. He must still be pissed she didn’t tell him about her relationship before it even happened, she thinks. Hell, she’s not sure if it even qualifies as a relationship, it’s still too new. Whatever, she tells herself, Bellamy will get over it. 

—

The movie is good, and the takeout is better. They hang out on Finn’s couch—he managed to find a one-bedroom apartment not too far from a bus stop, the lucky bastard—and put on Netflix in the background. One thing leads to another, as these things do, and Clarke finds herself underneath Finn, lying diagonally across his bed. He’s sweet with her, gentle, and eats her out for a while before rolling on a condom and pushing into her. He groans and lets his forehead fall onto her shoulder. She finds herself looking up at the ceiling while he busies himself sucking on her neck, a little annoyed by the boring beige popcorn pattern looking back at her. 

After, Finn asks her if she came. She didn’t, and she laughs it off. He apologizes, says he hasn’t been with anyone intimately in a while—been with anyone intimately, God, she thinks, just say what you mean, you haven’t gotten laid—and she smiles at him, sliding a hand down his arm. It’s not his fault, she tells herself, it was their first time, he doesn’t know what she likes or how she sounds when she comes, how would he, but a corner of her mind keeps darting back to Bellamy and the one time she’d been sucking his cock for long enough that he barely lasted five minutes inside her and how he slid down her body to lick at her clit until she had to push him away, over-sensitized, and how he slid three fingers into her and wrangled another one out of her before they both collapsed onto his bed, eyes half closed, looking up at his horrendous ceiling, and no she can’t be thinking about this now, she has a boyfriend, she’s pretty sure, her thing with Bellamy was nice and now it’s over.

—

Clarke comes home on Sunday morning and is greeted by the interrogation committee—even Emori is home—so she spills the beans, knowing full well the rest of their friends will know everything within hours. Nothing is safe from the gossip mill, but Clarke kind of likes it, likes that her friends are invested in her life and want to know if she’s happy with her new someone.

When Harper asks her how it was with a wiggle of her eyebrows, Clarke pauses before she answers, “It was nice.”

Octavia looks up from her phone, where she’s undoubtedly sharing the entire interrogation, skeptical. “Nice?” she says. “That’s all you’ve got?”

Clarke clicks her tongue. “No, not like that. He was—he was sweet, you know? Gentle.”

“Gentle,” Octavia repeats. “Clarke, have you ever done anything gently in your entire life.” It’s a statement, not a question, but Clarke answers anyway.

“That’s what I mean, nice,” she says. “It was a change from my usual, like taking a break.”

Harper smiles, but Octavia still looks a bit suspicious. Emori, who Clarke can never read, gives a half smirk and wanders off towards her room. 

—

Of course, Octavia has to give everyone a detailed rundown of what she knows of Clarke’s new sex life as soon as they all hang out again. Honestly, Clarke’s impressed that she lasted as long as she did without spilling all her beans into the group chat or something. Bellamy is standing next to her debating the finer points of historical accuracy in Assassin’s Creed with Miller and occasionally bumping elbows, when Octavia brings it up. Jasper jumps in quickly, and Clarke has to field more questions about “nice,” and about Finn, and about Finn’s dick, and by the time she convinces them to shut up about it, Bellamy’s gone. 

—

It keeps up. Bellamy doesn’t talk as much in the group chat, and he doesn’t text her, and he cancels on the next apartment movie night, to Octavia’s dismay. He gives an excuse that seems legit, and Clarke is annoyed when she catches herself feeling upset about it. Bellamy is his own person, and he’s allowed to do what he wants. He’s probably giving her space to figure out her new relationship, she tells herself. He’s accidentally scared off guys, and girls, that Clarke was hitting on before, that sort of thing tends to happen when your best friend is a stunningly attractive man with very little sense of personal space when drunk. 

It gets worse. Bellamy stops coming to as many group events over the next month, which she can understand—they’re way too codependent as a friend group, they should probably develop their own lives—and when he does come, he sticks to Miller and Octavia, even making polite conversation with Lincoln before coming to sit by Clarke. While he’s still polite and friendly enough when they’re thrown together the way they always are, that’s pretty much all he is. He’s mostly stopped texting her about anything other than logistics and shopping for the apartment. At one point, when she’s at The Ark with her coworkers to celebrate the end of the month and the successful conquest of another insurance cycle at the clinic, she sees him from her booth, sitting at the bar and chatting with some tall, leggy brunette. She smiles at him, almost waves, but he doesn’t meet her eyes. Later, she sees him walking the brunette out the door, his hand on her back, and feels kind of like she’s been punched in the gut before she reminds herself that Bellamy gets to live his life how he wants. He can pick up girls at bars like he did when they first met. It’s none of her business. 

So when Bellamy leaves the room the next time Octavia asks about Clarke’s latest date, muttering something about the bathroom, she does her best remember that it’s okay, she doesn’t care what he does. Even if it kind of hurts.

—

She goes out with Finn. He’s the kind of person who always wants to be doing something, going somewhere, not hanging out in his gloriously roommate-free apartment, just shooting the shit. Clarke finds she doesn’t really mind, even though some of her best times with her friends have been spent doing nothing on a living room floor, because she can never seem to find enough to say to Finn when they’re hanging out home alone. It’s fine, she tells herself, they’re still getting to know each other. And he’s sweet, treating her like a work of art when they have sex, calling her beautiful and smiling down at her. She doesn’t miss Bellamy’s rough hands and his dirty mouth and his self-satisfied smirk when he gets her off yet again, she doesn’t. 

Except she does miss his smirk, and his gallows humor, and she doesn’t realize just how much she misses it, sex aside, until Raven shows up.

—

Clarke is at Finn’s on Saturday morning, which is their new regular thing. After two months of dating, they’ve established cooking Saturday brunch as a date. Clarke comes over, they fumble through homemade pancakes without a box mix and laugh, and try not to burn the eggs into the pan. It’s nice, just like everything else they do together. Not particularly deep or anything, but nice. Easy. She likes it.

They’re trying French toast this time, and they’re doing pretty well, when the doorbell rings around a quarter to eleven. Finn looks at Clarke, and they share a moment of ‘who the hell is telemarketing on a Saturday” before Finn goes to answer the door.

It’s not a door-to-door salesman, or a Mormon, or even a politician. It’s a tall, gorgeous Latina with a killer jacket and amazing hair, and she’s Finn’s girlfriend.

—

Clarke waits for her bus, half a block past Finn’s building, too shell-shocked to even cry yet. She thinks she can still hear them yelling, Finn and his real girlfriend, but she knows she’s imagining things. His words keep replaying themselves in her brain, his claims that he didn’t know Raven was coming to visit, that they were living in different countries since Raven’s job had sent her to French Guiana to launch rockets and that their relationship was done, that he didn’t think he’d ever see her again, that this, that that, that everything else, and she can’t deal with the sound of his voice bouncing around her head. At least Raven seemed okay, just as surprised to see Clarke as Clarke was to see her, and Clarke’s glad that Raven seemed to be giving Finn the earful she couldn’t quite manage as she fled his apartment. 

Even with Lexa, she was never the other woman. Even with Lexa, they ended things before Costia came back. Even with Lexa, as disastrously as that went, Clarke knew that their relationship was just that—theirs. 

—

She’s crying by the time she gets home, silent tears that slide into heaving sobs as she climbs the stairs to her apartment, and Harper takes one look at her from her perch on the armchair by the television and calls Octavia.

Clarke hides out in her room for a while, until the pounding on her door gets insistent enough to drown out Reese Witherspoon kicking ass at Harvard Law. She opens the door, and Octavia’s concerned face fills the doorframe.

“I left Lincoln’s right away, honey, what’s wrong? What happened, is everyone ok—” she starts, and Clarke bursts into tears again. 

Octavia leads Clarke back to her bed and cuddles around her. Harper slips in through the open door, sitting further down on the bed but still close enough to hold Clarke’s hand. Octavia’s rubbing her back, shushing her and telling her to breathe, honey, just breathe, and Harper’s smiling encouragingly, and Clarke takes a deep breath and spits it out.

“He has a girlfriend. Another one. Raven,” she says, and Harper squeezes her hand tighter. Octavia’s jaw tenses, and her hand on Clarke’s back stills. 

Clarke lays out the whole sordid tale, how Raven left for South America last year to do literal rocket science, because of course Finn’s girlfriend is a genius as well as a literal supermodel, how they said they might see other people, how Finn told Raven that there was no one else like her at Christmas when he came to visit, how he couldn’t imagine being with anyone else, how he somehow thought that didn’t mean they were exclusive again, how Raven decided to surprise him by coming to visit for a week while she took interviews with NASA and SpaceX in the States, how Finn went white when he saw her in the doorway, how he said he could explain, but he couldn’t, how Clarke just had to get out of there, couldn’t even stay to give him a piece of her mind, and Harper’s there making soothing noises and Octavia is looking progressively more murderous, and God she’s so grateful for her friends, but she still wants Bellamy and his gallows humor to make some shitty joke about rockets or something to poke fun at her and make her laugh, but she isn’t sure if she gets that anymore. 

—

After an evening of ice cream and cheap wine, courtesy of her housemates, Clarke is feeling a bit better. She looks a little more like a person, her eyes no longer red and her hair braided up at Octavia’s insistence. The three of them—Emori is God knows where—finished Legally Blonde together and Clarke is feeling more confident than she was before, enough so that she slides on her sandals and takes the bus to Bellamy’s. Maybe they had a bit of a rough patch, but he’s still her best friend, and what are best friends for if not post-breakup trash talking?

When Clarke gets to Bellamy’s, the door is unlocked. She walks in and takes off her shoes, looking around for Bellamy. He’s not in the public space, so she knocks on his door, already berating him for leaving the apartment open, someone’s going to steal all their stuff someday and they’re going to deserve it, when the door opens and she sees a face she was kind of hoping she’d never see again.

It’s Raven, and Bellamy’s behind her, pulling on a shirt.

Raven sees something in Clarke’s face, clearly, because she nudges past Clarke with a drawn out “Aaaaaand, I’m going” that sounds just a little too loud in the silence pressing down on Clarke. Bellamy doesn’t seem to see anything, because he just stands there, unreadable, and when did she get so bad at reading him, he’s her best friend, why is he so far away from her across his threshold, what’s going on with them—

“To what do I owe the honor, Princess?” he says, dry, interrupting her resoundingly unproductive train of thought.

She can’t speak, she’s standing there with her mouth open trying to find the words, but it’s sinking in, what he’s done, what he’s done with Raven, to her, not even a day after everything, and how the fuck could he, she still loves him even if they’ve been distant, he’s her best fucking friend for God’s sake, what was he trying to get out of this, she doesn’t understand—

“So your plan was to barge into my apartment, scare off my—” he fumbles for the word, “my date, and then stand there in silence?” He’s annoyed now, his jaw going tight, and Octavia’s does the same thing when she’s angry, Clarke saw it just today when she was pouring out her pathetic story in her room, how has she never noticed that before, and Bellamy’s talking again.

“Okay, I get it now,” he says, and yeah, he’s pissed. “You get to have sex with whoever you want, without even telling me, even when we said there wasn’t anyone, but as soon as I join the club it’s judgment time? Wow, Clarke, that’s low.”

She’s frozen and she can’t feel her fingers, what is happening what is happening what is happening he’s mad and she can’t fucking move and he’s saying something now but there’s a roaring in her ears and she can’t hear him right and what the fuck is she doing what is she supposed to be doing and he’s pushing past her into the living room, hand ruffling his hair, and she’s staring at it, why is she noticing his hair right now, this is not the time, and he’s facing her again and he looks more resigned than angry now, and he’s talking and she has to hear him she has to she has to.

“Whatever, okay, do what you want,” he says. “But I won’t put up with this from you of all people. I don’t control your sex life, right? So you sure as hell don’t control mine!”

She finds her voice, finally. “I don’t control your sex life,” she says, and the words are wooden and unwieldy on her tongue. “I just thought—I just—I’ll go.”

She walks back towards the hallway, pushing past his furrowing eyebrows, his faint “Clarke!” as she closes his door behind her, and for the second time that day, she cries on the bus home.

—

Clarke drags herself up early the next morning, because the bus is irregular on Sundays and she has things to do. She has a ritual, when bad things happen. It started when she failed her first big test of grad school, and she’s kept it up through Lexa, through Niylah, through the anniversaries of her dad’s death. When bad things happen, she goes to see Wells.

It’s not actually his grave, most of his ashes are buried in the Jaha mausoleum, but Theolonius gave her a part of them and she carried them with her through college and grad school and buried them under a shrub she planted in the quiet park by the river once she settled her lease for five years. She thinks he’d like it there, it’s calm and he gets to be a shrub, recycling air and still helping people, even now. 

She’s halfway down the stairs when she runs into Emori, who was out with the car they all share. Emori takes one look at her, twists up her mouth, and wordlessly follows Clarke back down the stairs and into the building parking lot. 

“I’m going to see Wells,” Clarke says, holding out her hand for the keys. 

“And I’m driving you,” Emori responds, and she puts on her weird indie grunge music as they drive, bobbing her head to the beat and leaving Clarke to look out the window, and Clarke has never been more grateful to her friend than she is right now.

—

When Clarke gets back to the car, she feels better, or at least lighter. This is why she does this, talking to Wells and poking at his shrub, because she doesn’t feel any expectations around him, she never has. Even when he was alive, he was the only person she ever spent her dad’s death days with, because she could just be, when it was just them. She tells him everything, sitting by his shrub, how stupid she feels, how disgusted she is that she’s the other woman, how embarrassing it is that someone she dated could do something like that, how awkward this is going to be to explain to the rest of her friend. She tears up when she tells Wells about Bellamy, how he slept with Raven and how she doesn’t know why, but she doesn’t break down again and she’s proud of herself.

When she gets back to the car, Emori is sitting on the yellow parking marker, playing some game on her phone. Wordlessly, she unlocks the car, and they listen to more weird indie grunge on the way home. Clarke could get into this music, she decides. It’s a good distraction. 

—

Clarke calls in sick to work the next morning and spends a slow morning at the kitchen table, refreshing the same three apps on her phone and eating cereal. At some point in her reverie, Emori sits down across from her, but she doesn’t notice until the other girl clears her throat. 

“Talk,” says Emori, just that one word, and Clarke braces herself. She owes Emori and explanation, they all know that Clarke only goes to visit Wells when things are bad, and she knows Emori just wants to take care of her. 

So she squares her shoulders and tells it all again, the whole sordid tale, but this time she has to talk about Bellamy and what he did, and God that’s so much harder than when it was just Finn, he’s her best friend for God’s sake, or at least he was, but it doesn’t even matter because she’s never leaving the apartment ever again, not when she feels like this, slow and tired and just done with the world.

Emori, on the other hand, barks out a laugh. “You live in a fucking soap opera, girl,” she says, and Clarke manages a weak chuckle in response. Emori’s right. She should market this. 

—

Clarke gets a text that afternoon from an unknown number.

“hey, I got ur number from Finn, can we like get coffee or something”  
“this is raven by the way”  
“I feel like I owe u an explanation or something”

She stares at the messages for a good long while before sending back, “Ok.”

—

They meet at the Starbucks by the bus stop. Clarke shows up first, and is slowly sipping her latte when a thump breaks her focus.

Raven has thrown herself down across the table, some sort of walking stick clattering to the ground next to her. She starts talking immediately.

“Look, I had no idea, ok, about Finn or about your guy, what’s his name, Bellamy, I was just trying to get laid on the rebound, because if Finn doesn’t appreciate how awesome I am then someone else should, and it’s really fucked that it turned out the way it did, but I swear I was not trying to get back at you for my boyfriend by sleeping with your, uh, your man, it was just a stupid accident,” she pours out, all in one breath.

It’s a lot to process at once.

“It’s fine, don’t feel bad,” Clarke responds, still trying to sort through the new information. “He’s not, um—Bellamy and I are just friends, you can sleep with whoever you want to, it’s not a problem.” Clarke is used to having to correct people about her relationship with Bellamy, but never did she think she’d have to do it in a situation as twisted as this one. 

“Of course I can, I’m awesome,” says Raven breezily, but then she sobers. “Are you sure about the friends thing, though, because I saw you when I opened that door and I’m pretty sure your face looked just like mine did when Finn opened his.”

“I—what? Yeah, I’m sure,” says Clarke. “We’ve never been like that.”

Raven smirks a little. “Well, if you’re looking for a rebound, he comes highly recommended,” she says. “He does this thing with his tongue—” she stops herself, her grin growing. “You’re blushing! I knew there was something going on!”

Clarke feels her cheeks heat even more. “We were, um, casual for a little while, but it wasn’t anything, he’s not like that about me.”

“Whatever you say, sure,” says Raven in a tone that says otherwise. 

“How are you so chill about this?” Clarke demands. She needs to change the topic, right now, and this is as good a subject shift as any. “Not even a day after the whole thing and you’re already out getting laid? You’re just fine with this?”

Raven laughs. “You missed Saturday afternoon where I spent four hours drinking my way through a shitty six-pack in a hotel room,” she says casually. “I’m sure it’ll fuck me over later, but for now, I guess I’m still processing or whatever. At least now I have a good story for when I get back to South America.” 

Clarke tries to meek Raven’s grin, and comes up with a passable smile. “Yeah, this is one for the books.”

—

That night, reading through her emails, Clarke replays the conversation with Raven over and over in her head. Maybe she should rebound too, get this whole thing off her chest, but she’s never been great at picking people up, or even noticing when they’re trying to flirt with her. That’s why the thing with Bellamy was so great, she didn’t have to stress over who was sending what signals and what those signals meant. And now that she’s letting herself think about it, she realizes she’s more upset about Bellamy screwing her over than about Finn. It makes sense, she figures, she’s been invested in Bellamy for years and she’s only known Finn for a couple months.

And Raven’s wrong, there isn’t anything going on.

—

Wednesday morning, just before her lunch break at the clinic, she gets a text from Bellamy, the first in a while. She’s torn between needing to read it immediately and not wanting whatever shit he’s spouting about his freedom and his sex life to throw her off her game, especially when her first patient after lunch is an eight-year-old. She’s never had much patience, or much self-control for that matter, and she unlocks her phone to a long paragraph.

“Princess,” it starts, and she really needs to not think about that nickname right now, not when she can still remember what it sounds like rolling off his lips while he’s behind her, gripping her hips mean and asking her how much she likes it.

“Princess, I’m so fucking sorry. I had no idea, I met Raven at a bar and she said she was just getting over a breakup and looking for a distraction. I had no clue anything had happened with you, not until last night when Emori was over giving me the evil eye, which I probably deserve. I know I was shitty to you the past few months, while you were with that asshole, and that wasn’t okay, and I’m sorry. But I swear, I fucking swear to you, this was not me doing whatever the hell I wanted, I really didn’t know. I get it if you never want to look at me ever again. I just wanted you to know.”

Clarke stares at her phone in silence for a good few minutes. The only thing she can think about is the way Bellamy always texts with perfect grammar, and that’s what sticks with her for the rest of the day, through the eight-year-old and the patients that follow him, through her commute home, through leftover lasagna and a shower. Lying in bed, she takes a deep breath. Everything still sucks, for some reason, even though she knows that her best friend wasn’t trying to destroy her heart for some inscrutable reason. She’ll deal with it in the morning

—

She doesn’t deal with it in the morning. She keeps putting it off, pushing it out of her mind even though she knows he deserves a response, at least an acknowledgement that she read his message. She can’t deal with it, and she doesn’t know why, there’s something bigger here that’s bothering her, bigger than a cheating ex and a mix-up with casual sex and she can’t figure out what it is, and she hates it, hates not knowing what’s going on in her head, hates everything.

She backs out of game night, and no one gives her trouble about it, even though she’s less broken up over Finn than she is over Bellamy. The more she thinks about it, actually, the less she misses Finn. She’s really just upset that he made her the other women. Octavia was right, she doesn’t want nice. It was good for a little while, but she wants someone who’ll challenge her and push back at her, someone she’s comfortable just doing nothing with, someone who’ll treat her like a person and not a porcelain statue. And she likes her sex a little rougher, not like Finn who was always so slow and soft, like she’d break, more like—

She doesn’t want to think about Bellamy right now, doesn’t want the memories of his hands and his mouth and his weight and his voice, deeper with want, teasing her until she’d begged, forcing her to let go of her obsessive need to micromanage for once, making her feel, just feel, and God what a feeling, and oh fuck she’s in love with him, isn’t she.

—

After dancing around it for a few days, Clarke comes to terms with her own emotions. She’s in love with her best friend, and not just because the sex they’d had was off the charts. She loves him because he’s always treated her like a person, pushed her when she needed to be pushed, but stopping before he went too far. She loves him because he balances her outer control-freak and inner need to let go by being the exact opposite. She loves him because for the last couple of years, it’s him she’s gone to on her dad’s death days, after she visits Wells, and that says more than she could ever articulate herself.

She finally texts him back, because she can pretend she’s not avoiding him and everyone else she knows if she communicates electronically. 

“sorry it took me so long to respond, I was working through some shit.” He knows that, obviously, but it’s too late, she’s sent the message.

“thanks for clarifying everything, you’ve been fine, don’t stress out or anything.” That sounds like she’s sending him a work email.

“I’m not mad or anything, it’s just hard getting over a breakup especially when youre the other woman and the first woman is so awesome.” Why does she send things in so many texts, she could put all of this in one speech bubble, but whatever, it’s done.

It takes her a while to fall asleep.

—

The next day is Tuesday, which means it’s Blake sibling dinner night. Clarke is a little bit ashamed that she plans her day around it. She doesn’t want to see Bellamy yet. Hell, she’s barely interacted with her housemates, and she lives with them. She’ll be ready soon, she tells herself. Just not yet.

She picks up the late shift at the clinic, ostensibly to make up for the day she missed after everything went to shit. Nyko, who usually takes the late shift and closes up, is grateful and a little suspicious, but doesn’t press her. After an uneventful few hours, Clarke hauls herself onto the train and back into her apartment.

“Harper, I’ll wash your krav maga clothes if you let me use your detergent, I’m headed to the Laundromat—“ Clarke calls out as she unlocks the door to her apartment, stuttering to a stop as she sees Bellamy, sitting at her kitchen table.

“Harper’s out,” he says. “She’s getting drinks. And Emori’s with Murphy and Octavia’s on a date. O let me in before she left.”

Clarke doesn’t know how she’s supposed to respond. They both know she’s been avoiding him, and he thinks he knows why, and she honestly wishes he were right. It’s been some intense emotional whiplash, going from what was probably the best sex of her life to barely talking to seeing him with Raven to realizing she’s in love with him. She doesn’t want to deal with it. If she keeps ignoring it, it’ll all go away. Except now it’s sitting at her kitchen table, looking at her with a tight, unreadable expression.

“What about sibling dinner night?” she tries, weakly.

“When I told O I wanted to talk to you, she leveraged it to go out with that massive guy who’s too old for her, the artist,” Bellamy responds. 

“Octavia can date who she wants, she’s a grown woman,” Clarke starts, irresistibly falling into another of their worn-out arguments, and shit she shouldn’t have responded with that, he’s going to bring up what she said when she was with Finn and what he said when he was with Raven, fuck fuck fuck—

Bellamy bites out a laugh. He clearly doesn’t think this is funny. “We can all get with who we want, yeah,” he says. “I’m just great with that, aren’t I.” 

Clarke goes to reassure him, her mouth halfway open before she realizes she doesn’t know what to say. That maybe she doesn’t want to say anything. 

“Look, I know I was shitty to you about Finn,” he starts, and God she doesn’t want to hear him apologize now, not when she’s been avoiding him and needing him and all but lying to him, but it’s too late, he’s speaking again. “I was pissed because I thought you were hiding things from me—” if only he knew—“and then because I—never mind, it doesn’t matter. I pushed you away because you were dating someone, and then I slept with his other girlfriend, like some kind of genius—”

This, she can respond to. “You didn’t know, it was fine—” she starts, and he cuts her off with a wry smile.

“I know, I didn’t know, it just happened like that. What a clusterfuck.” She has to agree. “And I totally get it if you never want to speak to me again, but I need to hear it from you, okay? I need to like, clear the air, get closure, whatever. And you’ve been avoiding me, and I totally get it, and I’m sorry for ambushing you like this, but—” he runs his hand through his hair, sighing. “Just tell me to go away and leave you alone, God knows I deserve it—”

Suddenly, she’s angry. It’s comforting, falling into an emotion she can name, understand. She’s always known where she stands with Bellamy when they’re angry, even though their arguments are almost entirely friendly bickering at this point. 

“Fuck that, you don’t ‘deserve’ anything,” she says a little too sharply. “No one deserve anything, I didn’t deserve to be the other woman, Raven didn’t deserve to get cheated on, Finn didn’t deserve either of us, but here we are. Stop moping about it and deal, God knows I have.”

“Have you?” he shoots back, rising from his seat to match her temper. “Is that what you call ditching all your friends, ignoring the people who care about you, ignoring me, to drink cheap wine and watch the fucking Princess Diaries on Netflix?”

It was Legally Blonde, she thinks, and she can’t think anything else, because he’s right, he’s right and she fucking hates it, but he’s wrong too, she hasn’t been avoiding anyone because of Finn, it’s because of him, and that probably makes it worse, they’ve always been honest with each other, if a little mean about it at the beginning, and he’s talking again. 

“Our friends don’t deserve this, they want to be there for you, if you’re so upset with me just ignore me when we all go out together—”

“Yeah, you’d be the expert at that,” she shoots back nastily, and regrets it as soon as the words leave her mouth.

“I was shitty, I know, I apologized, what more do you want?” he all but yells.

“I want you to treat me like a person, Bellamy, I want you to recognize that I can do what I want with my body and not throw a fucking tantrum over it!” It’s true, she does want him not to have reacted like he did, but it’s not what she wants to be saying right now, God only knows what she wants to be saying right now, it’s all such a fucking mess.

“A tantrum?” he responds. “You mean like not hanging out with the group, or not texting my best friend for a fucking week, or not fucking talking to anyone about what’s going on with me? Because that sounds an awful lot like what you’ve been doing, Clarke, not me!”

“At least everyone knows why!” She doesn’t want to be having this fight, she doesn’t mean any of it, but it’s happening anyway. “At least I wasn’t communicating because my fucking boyfriend was a cheater and my best friend slept with his other girlfriend when I needed him! At least I didn’t give anyone the cold shoulder for literally no fucking reason!”

“No reason, huh?” They’re both yelling, but neither of them seems mad about what they’re yelling about. “I had a fucking reason, I was jealous, okay? I stopped talking to you because you got a boyfriend and you were so happy about it and I was jealous!”

She’s opening her mouth to scream back when his words register. He was jealous. 

“You were jealous,” she says, sounding numb, even to herself. Like she doesn’t have a reaction. Like he hasn’t just admitted to—something, while she’s here yelling at him over things she’s already forgiven him for, because she’s in love with him and doesn’t know how to deal with it. “You were jealous of Finn.” She says it like a fact, even though it’s really a question. She doesn’t know what’s happening anymore.

All the fight has drained out of him. “Yeah, in retrospect that was pretty stupid, but I never said I was reasonable about you,” he says. His face is red, from the yelling or from embarrassment, she isn’t sure.

They’re both quiet. “So I can just go, and we can pretend this never happened and you can avoid me or whatever.” He starts towards the door, not looking at her, and she has to say it, she has to say it now or she’ll lose him, but she can’t get the words out, why can’t she fucking talk to him—

“Bellamy,” she manages as he’s opening the door. He whips around, hope flashing across his face before he schools it into careful blankness, and God that brief expression is enough to make her cry. “Bellamy, I—” Fuck, why is this so hard, he just up and said it, why can’t she— “That’s not why.”

He’s confused. She relates.

“That’s not why I was avoiding you. Well, it was at first, thinking your best friend slept with your boyfriend’s other girlfriend to get back at you is pretty terrible, but then you explained, and it wasn’t why anymore.” She can’t finish, she doesn’t know how, this whole night has been a series of things she doesn’t know. 

“Then why?” he asks. 

“I—I, um, realized. That I wasn’t even upset about Finn anymore. That I didn’t even like him that much, he was always so—so gentle around me, I didn’t feel like a person, I felt like a fucking china teacup that he brought out for fancy company, I didn’t feel like I did when I was with you.” There. She said something, 

“With me,” he repeats, and she can see him pushing back the hope again. “It was better when you were with me.” It’s tentative, but it’s a statement, not a question. 

“It was the best with you, Bellamy, not just the sex, everything.” The fight is long over now, and she’s back to not knowing how to feel, which is stupid, because he pretty much admitted he was into her and she should be happy, right? It should all be working out now.

“Are you—were you—” At least he’s having trouble articulating things too. “When I was with Raven and you walked in, were you maybe jealous too? Obviously you were a lot of other things, you were dealing with a lot and I wasn’t helping, and it fucking sucked, you probably weren’t paying attention to anything else, much less anything about me, except that you were mad—”

Babbling Bellamy she can deal with. “Breathe,” she says fondly, he’s always cute when he’s up in his head. “If I had the space to feel anything else, I would have been jealous too. I felt like I had been punched when I saw you leave The Ark with that girl and I had to remind myself that I didn’t care, except I obviously did,” and now it’s him cutting her off, striding across the room to her, sweeping her up in his arms and holding her close.

“Thank fucking God, I thought I was going to die when you were with that asshole, and then when you walked in with Raven—God, it was awful, I can’t believe things got that fucked. I didn’t even realize when we were just sleeping together, it took till your first date for me to realize I was in love with you—” He cuts himself off abruptly. 

She’s laughing, crying into his shoulder. “I’m in love with you too, I figured it out Wednesday.” 

He pulls away a little, his hands still around her waist, and looks at her. He’s smiling, his whole face lit up. “So we both react badly to emotion,” he says, and somehow it’s perfect. 

She smiles back at him, leaning in closer. He’s contagious. “I guess so, but my reasons are still better than yours.”

He laughs, squeezing her waist. “Of course you have to be competitive about incompetence.” 

“Would you love me if I wasn’t?” It feels like too much for a second, but he’s still laughing, and then he’s kissing her, soft at first, but then deeper, pulling her flush against him, and it’s different than it was before, it’s somehow more, this is what she was missing, this is everything. 

He breaks away, looking down at her. “Clarke, you could send me to live in space for six years and I’d come back still loving you,” he says, and backs her towards the hallway, pulls her into her bedroom. 

Yeah, she thinks later, after. Even a nuclear apocalypse couldn’t stop this.


End file.
